WHAT’S NEW IN FALL 2010 COMPUTER LCD DISPLAYS

One of the larger marketing names, Viewsonic, was the first to hit the streets with a new VX2250wm-LED 22 inch LCD display. So I checked the web site of the world’s two largest producers Samsung and LG Electronics, and it seems their new models also have one leading new feature LED backlighting. That’s a good move from some perspectives, LED’s use less power, and are free of any contaminates so are eco-friendly. They also allow thinner, lighter weight models relative to screen size, so shipping costs to American and other worldwide markets is reduced a bit. So far, nothing to complain about other than the fact these new LED LCD displays are like last years, reproduce essentially an sRGB color gamut and if anything are as bright or even brighter, so the “my prints are too dark” problem remains a negative factor still caused by displays that are too bright.

As you may have noticed recently in this blog space I have written about LED lamps, also made in Asia, that are almost ideally suited to providing digital darkroom environment illumination. And from my limited investigation of LED as a light source It is apparent manufacturers do have the potential for control, for instance the lamps I am now using are rated to work with voltages from 90 to 250, and of course at a lower voltage emit somewhat less light. So it would seem with LED backlit LCD displays it would not be au difficult to design a backlight that could be lowered in brightness for use in reproducing photographic images that are going to be color managed prints. Sadly the specifications for these new LED LCD displays don’t offer such a control, but the two main manufacturers both rate brightness as 250-300 CD/m2, and that needs to be cut by 2/3rds if the display is adjusted to match the white of high quality printing paper.

I also looked at the NEC and Eizo sites, and other than the 24 inch NEC LCD2490WUXi2 Spectraview 2 that came out about the same time as my review of the 22 inch NEC P221W Spectraview 2, there isn’t anything in the under $1,000 cost other than the Eizo Flexscan S2242W or 2243W I recommended in this blog. But Eizo just announced a new 19 inch Flexscan S1902 that has an interesting Paper Mode, that may be indicative this little office model could be color managed and used for digital photography. But it is not listed by any Eizo sellers yet so I could not get an idea of its expected retail cost.

So unless someone surprises me in finding another make and model of LCD displays that can be adjusted to 90.0 CD/m2 and also provides a color gamut much wider than sRGB, there aren’t many affordable LCD displays to recommend to serious digital photography enthusiasts. Sadly the industry thinks there are just too few of use to offer anything but the few less costly models of professional displays, most of which are way beyond my means, and from what I hear many of my readers also. So, if you have a new recommendation, let’s know about it: write me at goofotografx@gmail.com - and I’ll check into it.ViewSonic’s VX2250WM-LED 22-Inch (21.5-Inch Vis) Widescreen Full HD 1080p LED Monitor with Integrated Stereo SpeakersNEC LCD2490WUXi2-BK 24" WIDESREEN LCD MONITOR 24 INCHEizo Shows Five FlexScan Displays.(EIZO Nanao Technologies FlexScan L465, L375, L685)(Product Announcement): An article from: Display Development News